Local places, plants and invertebrates, occasional ancient coins, some other stuff.

Wednesday, 3 October 2012

The Hammock Weaver

Spiders' webs on gorse, Hayes Common, 8 October 2010.

Photos from the past. On a misty autumn morning, fine droplets of water cling to spider silk, revealing the huge number of webs on the gorse. This photo is from 2010; I haven't taken a better one of this phenomenon since. But a year ago I took some shots of the creature that makes all these webs; the Common Hammock-weaver, Linyphia triangularis.

You can see the distinctive tuning-fork mark on its thorax. This spider weaves horizontal platform webs with strands running up to the foliage above. A flying insect that hits those strands might fall onto the platform below; and underneath it, the spider waits. It can quickly run along the underside and bite its prey through the web. The spider can deal effectively with substantial prey ... This one is in the same place I took the top photo.

Spider, Linyphia triangularis, Common Hammock-weaver, dealing with a relatively large fly.
Hayes Common, 22 September 2011.

Cameras, Photographs

Many of the earlier photos on this blog were taken with a Canon Ixus 100 camera; tiny and really quite good. The coin photos and some earlier closeups were taken with a Canon EOS 450D and a Canon EF 100mm macro lens.

On 30 June 2011 I got an EOS 60D, and closeups after that up to mid-May 2012 were taken with this camera and the 100mm macro lens. Then I got an EOS 5D Mark III, a camera with a full-frame sensor, which was used from mid-May 2012. From January 2013 I started to use an EOS 6D, also full-frame, but lighter and with built-in GPS. By this time I had a new Canon 100mm macro lens with image stabilisation, which is very helpful for my handheld shots. Currently, as from mid-August 2015, I have an EOS 5DS, a wonderful camera.

Clicking on a photo will bring up a carousel of the photos from that posting.